THE POETICAL WORKS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL.• WE are glad to

welcome the poetical works of Campbell in the new Aldine edition of the poets. His fame is likely, we think, to be permanent, for no alteration of popular taste, no fashions in poetry, as evanescent sometimes and as absurd as fashions in dress, can affect the reputation of such poems as "The Soldier's

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The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell. Edited by his Nephew-in-law, the Bee. W. Alfred Bill, M.A. With a Sketch of his Life by William AllIngham. London: George Bell sod Sons. 1875.

Dream," " The Battle of the Baltic," " Hohenlinden," or " The Last Man." These are Campbell's noblest works, in which what- ever lyrical inspiration was in him finds fullest expression. Although as lyric poetry even these fine pieces are scarcely to be ranked in the first class, they are well - nigh

perfect of their kind. Campbell's powers were confined within a comparatively narrow range. Much that he has done seems to be the result of imitative power, or is dis- figured by the conventional diction peculiar to writers of the last century. He belongs rather to that century than to ours, and if in his " Pleasures of Hope" we are reminded frequently of Pope, it must be acknowledged that the disciple is in almost every respect inferior to his master. In rhythm, in terseness of expres- sion, in the exquisite adaptation of language to thought, in intel- lectual vigour, there is no comparison between the two, and, moreover, of Pope's superb gifts as a satirist, Thomas Campbell was wholly destitute. Far nearer is the likeness to Rogers, whose " Pleasures of Memory " had passed through several editions when Campbell's first work appeared. Now-a-days, a poem cast in that mould would attract but slight attention. Some critical approval, mixed with a large share of censure, it would probably receive, but it is certain that the public would not be startled by the advent of a new poet, and that the verdict uttered on the poem by Wordsworth may be regarded as final. " Campbell's ' Pleasures of Hope,' " he once said, " has been strangely overrated ; its fine words and sounding lines please the generality of readers, who never stop to ask themselves the meaning of a passage." Obscurity or even want of meaning is a strange fault with which to charge a writer of the so-called "classic school," but it is one from which Campbell is by no means free. It is pretty certain that, like some poetical writers of our own day, he did not always understand what he was sing- ing about. He polished his verses with the utmost labour, and in his care for the surface too often neglected the substance. At a first glance, the "Pleasures of Hope" proved wonderfully at- tractive, but after a time, people grow tired of veneer. It was exactly ten years after winning fame and friends by his first venture, that Campbell brought out " Gertrude of Wyoming," a poem containing some lovely lines, but without force and back- bone, and injured also, as Mr. Allingham has observed, by the use of hollow, conventional diction. "It would, perhaps, be impossible," he writes, and the criticism is, we think, just, " to read ' Gertrude' aloud and with due emphasis to an audience of the present day without the risk of exciting risibility at least as often as the nobler emotions ...... A mixture of the extremely artificial and conventional with manly directness and vigour is peculiar to Campbell, and perhaps traceable partly to the anxiety with which he touched and retouched and polished his work. The picture was often too much worked, to borrow an illus- tration from the studio, though the charm of spontaneity still survived in many happy passages." It has often happened that a great poet, attempting to describe scenery he has never beheld, has seized upon its principal features by a happy inspiration, and has avoided any material error. This is not the case with Campbell. Although he toiled at his verses with the steady application of a mechanic, he must be frequently credited with blunders which care and larger knowledge would have prevented. The con- ventional phraseology and the personifications which give such an artificial appearance to much of Campbell's verse were the common dress of poetry at the period, when, as a very young man, he formed his poetical style, and may be found exhibited even more offensively in the Odes of Gray. Campbell, a revolutionist in politics, was a conservative in poetry, and never accepted, although he was not uninfluenced by, the change which took place at the beginning of this century. It is said that he detested the Lake School, and throughout his poetical wanderings his regard for the old paths is evident.

"It is usual for a poet," says Mr. Allingham, " to begin by ad- miring, perhaps worshipping, some one or more of his immediate predecessors,—of those to whose song the actual world is ringing and replying. Among the oddest things in Campbell is his apathy, all through life, for the poetry of his own era. To all appearance, he never cared to give it any attention." As a general assertion, this is no doubt true, but Campbell did occasionally express a very high opinion of the work of his brother poets. In a letter, for instance, given in Lockhart's Life, how hearty is his praise of one of Scott's fine ballads !— " The verses of Cadogan Castle are perpetually ringing in my imagi- nation:—

' Where mightiest of the beasts of chase, That roam in woody Caledon, Crashing the forest in his race, The mountain bull comes thundering on ; "

and the arrival of Hamilton, when

' Reeking from the recent deed,

He dashed his carbine to the ground.'

I have repeated these lines so often on the North Bridge, that the whole fraternity of coachmen know me by tongue as I pass. To be sure, to a mind in sober, serious, street-walking humour, it must bear an appear- ance of lunacy when one stamps with the hurried pace and fervent shake of the head which strong, pithy poetry excites."

The first rank in the poetry of Campbell must be awarded to battle-pieces, or to subjects suggested by the soldier's career. A more perfect war-poem than " Hohenlinden " has never been produced, and the sentiment of "The Soldier's Dream" is altogether exquisite. But Campbell is sometimes eminently suc- cessful in quite a different direction. Witness his lyrics addressed to the Field-flowers and to the Rainbow, and the pathetic feeling contained in the following lines is expressed with the utmost simplicity and beauty :-

" The more we live, more brief appear Our life's succeeding stages; A day to childhood seems a year, And years like passing ages.

The gladsome current of our youth, Ere passion yet disorders, Steals, lingering like a river smooth, Along its grassy borders.

But as the care-worn cheek grows wan, And Sorrow's shafts fly thicker, Ye stars that measure life to man, Why seem your courses quicker?

When joys have lost their bloom and breath, And life itself is vapid, Why, as we reach the Falls of death, Feel we its tide more rapid ?

It may be strange—yet who would change Time's course to slower speeding ; When one by one our friends have gone And left our bosoms bleeding?

Heaven gives our years of fading strength Indemnifying fleetness ; And those of youth a seeming length Proportioned to their sweetness."

It has been said that Coleridge's poetical life was confined within the narrow compass of five years, and Campbell also had done his work as a poet when he was still a young man. He lived to the age of sixty-seven, but after thirty or thereabouts there are no signs of poetical or even of intellectual progress. He was content to do booksellers' work, of which, considering what his powers were, he ought to have been ashamed ; nor was this all, for he did the work badly, and much of it was little better than a sham. "It was job work, which he did reluctantly and lazily ; his name was advertised, his fee paid, and so many volumes were added to the waste-paper of the world." Mr. Allingham's view of the poet's character is probably correct, but the way in which he expresses his opinions is wanting sometimes in simplicity and good taste. The following passage on the first page of the memoir affords an illustration of the writer's mannerism :— " Campbell's faculties—though we cannot settle them with all the precision that will probably in such cases be in the power of our sons or grandsons, when scientific analysis shall have thoroughly learned how to deal with mental as with other forms of force, and to express any possible combination of memory, conscientiousness, logicality, imagina- tion, religiosity, dm., by a simple formula—Campbell's faculties, too, while undoubtedly those of a superior mind, are sot of a mysterious order."

When Mr. Allingham is less pretentious in his criticism he is more satisfactory, and the following general observations on Campbell's position as a poet seem to hit the mark exactly :— "Campbell was lucky in the launch of his first venture. Edinburgh was small enough to be occupied with the appearance of a new poem, by a Scotchman to boot, and important enough to stamp it with a re- commendation. He wrote in the taste of the time, yet with recognisable originality, and he handled topics of immediate though not ephemeral interest. His battle-pieces, too, on names and subjects known to all, had the true popular ring, a bold tramp of metre. When closely ex- amined, perhaps nothing great can be found in his work. A poet is apt to be more or less like the mountain to which distance lends enchant- ment, standing a blue jewel on the horizon, a beacon and landmark to many valleys. The climber finds much of it to be rough, dull, and barren, and its geological structure forces itself on his attention. But neither is the microscopic view of the mountain the true one. Little matters how Campbell managed to produce Ye Mariners of England,' The Sold ier's Dream," The Battle of the Baltic,' the fine passages of The Pleasures of Hope,' Gertrude,' and 'O'Connor's Child.' Indeed, how exactly no critical acumen could by any possibility find out He had the touch; that is what is certain. Numberless English verses were written during his career by men and women all over the globe, but it so happened, and passing time has made it clearer, that in particular qualities he excelled all others, even of the good artists of his school; which school was not, however, the highest. In art, nothing succeeds but success ; a man can only prove the possibility of doing a thing by actually doing it." One small volume contains all the poetry written by Campbell ; and it is no exaggeration to say that we could readily part with at least half of that volume. In spite of his great fastidiousness, which was carried to such an extent that it affected his health and comfort, he wrote a good deal that is of quite second-rate quality. It seems, however, inevitable that with the gold of poetry we must also receive a considerable amount of dross. Wordsworth, for whom the Times, in a recent leader on Lord Byron, had nothing better to say than that he was a writer of " versified philosophy," has, no doubt, composed a great deal of verse which might be abstracted from his noble poetry without in any degree lessening its value ; so has Byron, with his Giaours and Zuleikas, his Conrads and Laras ; so have Scott and Crabbe ; so even have Shelley and Coleridge, the most poetical of modern poets ; and indeed by almost all our poets, no matter to what age they belong, the work achieved that is of superlative excellence is small in quantity when compared with the work that is simply tolerated because it is theirs.

Perfection in art, although always to be aimed at, can but rarely be attained ; and if Campbell, like his brother-poets, has some- times crept when he would fain have soared, he has at least added five or six songs to our literature which appear to be marked for immortality. Campbell's finest poems might no doubt be printed on a few pages, and so an infinitely precious jewel may be carried in a small case.